One weekend up, the next down. That’s been the story of UND’s baseball season thus far.

A week after the Green and White completed their first sweep in team history, they found themselves at the other end of the broom in Omaha, Neb.

UND was swept by the Creighton Bluejays in three games.

Game 1 on Friday proved to be North Dakota’s biggest defeat of the weekend. UND came into the game confident and ready to win, after it had achieved a season-high four-game win streak.

The batters were stagnated by Creighton’s pitching — only tallying four hits on the game. Jacob Threlkeid and Taylor Petersen accounted for UND’s only two runs in the game.

The pitching also was off in the first game as Andrew Thome continued what has been a down season for him. Thome gave up five runs off eight hits, off of five innings on the mound. Two of the five runs came in the first inning alone. Thome was credited with the loss, setting him back to 1-3 on the season.

An attempt at a rally failed in the eighth inning, and Creighton coasted into a 6-2 win.

Game 2 had a very different tone.

The bats came alive on Saturday with pitching to match — but unfortunately, the results were the same.

UND’s bats were hitting much more than the first game, as the Green and White out-hit Creighton 9-7, and scored three runs, one of which came in the ninth inning.

Zach Muckenhirn pitched another great game that resulted in a no-decision. The freshman phenom went 5.2 innings while only giving up two runs off of three hits, and striking out five.

When it came to the bottom of the ninth, UND was ahead of Creighton, 3-2, but that was when the pitching started to unravel.

Creighton saw its chance and took it as relief pitchers Ellery Bresnahan and Tyler Ruemele blew the UND lead. After a pinch-hit triple, the score 3-3 and two outs to go, Ruemele could not close the door and gave up the game winning run. Creighton 4, UND 3.

“Give them credit, they came up big with a pinch-hit triple to tie it and set up the winning run,” UND coach Jeff Dodson said. “I thought we pitched pretty well tonight with Zach Muckenhirn and Ellery Bresnahan having good outings in that second game, they just hit some balls hard in the ninth that game them the win.”

Game 3, once again, had a different story, but the same results.

The bats were swinging on Sunday as UND accounted 15 hits and six runs on the game. Jacob Threlkeld and Ryan Reese had good days, going 3-5 with a run and 4-5 with an RBI, respectively.

Even though UND drove in a series-high six runs, it still would not be enough.

Jeff Campbell had been on a tear, winning three games in a row, two of which were complete games.

Sunday was a different story as he struggled on the mound. Campbell gave up seven earned runs off of nine hits in 6.2 innings of work and was credited with the loss.

While the batters did everything they could to keep the team in the game, a three-run fifth inning by Creighton iced the game at 8-6, and gave Creighton the sweep it was looking for.

UND will try and put the sweep in the rear view for now, because with the upcoming weekend means the team is back to conference play. The next weekend also is significant because it marks the first time the Green and White will play in Grand Forks this season.

UND will play New Mexico State in four games at Kraft Memorial Field, with a double-header to close out Sunday.

Alex Stadnik is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].